If you commit a fraud that only suckers fall for, sure you can blame them for being suckers, but you're still guilty of fraud. Why shouldn't the state go after the school for their deceptive practices?
If you commit a fraud that only suckers fall for, sure you can blame them for being suckers, but you're still guilty of fraud. Why shouldn't the state go after the school for their deceptive practices?
don't advertisers use this technique all the time to sell products ?
" if you buy this " .... " [ insert product] you will be beautiful, have lots of friends, drive an expensive car Et cetera ...
i kind of know that if i change toothpaste my life isn't going to change altogether ... the students should have done their homework before shifting the blame altogether to the school.
When the Fed's started their student loan program for so called vocational schools, there was a great motivation to get on the band wagon. Schools started to franchise and promises, like "pro-formas" became gilded. Some " old voc schools" got the feaver. Some of the kids just didn't pay off their loans so taxpayers lost money and some students learned a hard lesson. As the construction director for one national school, I could see the problems.
"don't advertisers use this technique all the time to sell products ?"
advertisers can imply anything they want. but if they lie outright, they're breaking the law.
if they have evidence that they are breaking some law, fine (though I'd like to know if what the regulators say is true or not). the other question is: when did anyone promise anyone a job? after paying for a private college and grad school, i don't ever recall hearing anyone say 'after all this, you will be hired as a highly paid X after graduation'. lots of phd's driving cabs out there an they aren't suing anybody.
furthermore, any pro photographer i've ever talked to (including John Shaw) typically say things like 'there's about 3 people in this field making any money'. given the internet, i can easily look up the salary ranges for almost any job out there. i just looked up the median income for a photographer in the LA area and it's 51K. knowing these statistics, that's for someone with several years experience. coming right out of school, you can't expect to make that. now, if all the students want is for brooks to get fined and stop saying "you will get a 100K job when you graduate" (if that's what they are indeed saying" then fine, i agree with that. i can't agree that they deserve anything more than that though.
It should come as no surprise to any professional that enrolling in any photo school as a career move these days is a singularly dumb idea. Robert Mitchum summed it up, talking about the fallacy of acting school: "Spending tens of thousands of dollars to study how to be tall".
Photographically, the party is over. Naive kids need to know that.
However, what IS news to me is that dear old Brooks is having trouble.
When I was enrolled in Art Center in the late 60's, I found it spooky, theoretical and ethereal. We spent a lot of time sitting around discussing whether yellow was a happier color than red. A bunch of hippie potheads.
Meanwhile, Brooks was busily teaching grunts the nuts and bolts of photography, such as how to remove zits from a wedding portrait.
A lot of mean-spirited petty politics instigated by Charles Potts drove many top people away from Art Center, some to Brooks. Several of us students longed to follow, but didn't.
But the main difference between the two schools in those days was that Art Center taught wonderful dreamy theory, but never dirtied its hands showing students how to actually earn a living. Brooks did, perhaps at the cost of appearing somewhat less lofty.
Poor Brooks. Nothing lasts forever.
Read close. The schools generally state "....potential earnings of...", not guaranteed first-year earnings. Or ..."our graduates can expect to earn UP TO... their first year...". All it really takes to be a legally viable statement is "one" student making that. They may have already been in that field, recognized, and earning close to that prior to attending, and merely took the courses as a "refresher", but it still qualifies as "one student".
"There is a sucker born every minute..."
In this part of the country, there are welding schools everywhere you look, with commercials stating their "earning potential". Realistically, the typical graduate can expect to earn about the same rate of pay as a stock-clerk on an hourly basis. Their commercials state in a low tone and quickly "...with substantial overtime availability..." or some such disclaimer of guaranteed income and/or placement assistance. And just like the door-to-door salesman, they are looking for that "get-rich-quick, obsessive-compulsive buyer" that will pay twice the amount for half the goods.
Listen close and read the fine print. A smart cat always covers its own crap.
"The schools generally state "....potential earnings of...""
If that's what brooks is saying, then they're not breaking any laws. If they're saying "the average income is ..." and then making up a number, then they are.
I knew at one point that I wanted to attend school and study photography. I chose to not attend Brooks when I read a statement about the school that said, "No nude photography allowed." Though I have never shot a nude and don't know that I will I thought that having a rule like that made it an institution that I did not want to attend.
I did choose to attend San Francisco Art Institute. The recruiters told me about how Ansel Adams started the photography department so many years ago, but went on to say that he has no living legacy at the school. They also mentioned that Annie Leibovitz attended the school, but explained that at the time she was studying in the painting department and dropped out of the school. They have stories of tons of people like this, but always explained that the school was not the reason these people were anything special.
I think I selected the school because of their frankness which I greatly appreciate.
I agree that fraud is fraud, but I also think that too many people are too quick to point fingers when things don't go the way they want them to.
My best help before attending school again was in studying the book Why Art Cannot Be Taught by James Elkins. I'd recommend this book to anyone who does anything based in art or craft.
Did I mention that $26,000 the Brooks graduates are averaging is for managing the photo department at the local Wal-Mart?
They are selling point-and-shoot digital cameras to secretaries to shoot themselves what their companies used to pay $100,000 per year for professional photographers to do with sheet film twenty-five years ago.
The end of an era has come and gone. It seems nobody noticed...
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